


Babylon Is Fallen

by Rroselavy



Series: Seven Times Seven [2]
Category: Yugioh
Genre: AU, M/M, Round Robin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-06
Updated: 2010-06-06
Packaged: 2017-10-09 23:09:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/92619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rroselavy/pseuds/Rroselavy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Three chapters written for a round-robin at the Yahoo group A Dragon's Lair. The premise is that Kaiba Seto and Jounouchi Katsuya have been cursed and must travel through time until they, or their friends whom were left behind in Domino City, can lift the curse. The opening sentence and closing sentence are the same for every chapter in the alternative universes.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Babylon Is Fallen

**Author's Note:**

> Three chapters written for a round-robin at the Yahoo group A Dragon's Lair. The premise is that Kaiba Seto and Jounouchi Katsuya have been cursed and must travel through time until they, or their friends whom were left behind in Domino City, can lift the curse. The opening sentence and closing sentence are the same for every chapter in the alternative universes.

He gave a mighty shout, "Babylon is fallen--that great city is fallen! She has become the hideout of demons and evil spirits, a nest for filthy buzzards, and a den for dreadful beasts."

\-- Revelations 18:2 (New Living Translation)

* * *

Seto looked around and attempted to determine where, or when, they were now. He was standing at water's edge, facing a large city-New York-the lower Manhattan skyline to be precise. But-

"Something's wrong." Jounouchi spoke his thoughts. The two teens stared at the skyline. The sun beat down pleasantly enough, the sky overhead was a brilliant azure, and a warm breeze ruffled the teens' hair. "It's too quiet."

Jounouchi was right, Kaiba thought. His spoken words had only served to amplify the silence. The only sounds to be heard were the gentle lapping of the water against the pier and the rustle of leaves fluttering in the breeze. Kaiba grew alarmed, and he gripped the aluminum rail. There were no birds in the air, no boats powering along the waters of the lower harbor, just nothingness.

"Kaiba," Jounouchi whispered. "The city ... it looks-"

"Abandoned." The brunet said with finality. He turned around to view the land behind them. Towering above them was the Statue of Liberty, her green copper patina sullied by long vertical streaks of soot and grime. 'Liberty Island,' he snorted to himself. The once-manicured lawn that had graced the area below the statue's base had become overgrown with inordinately tall stalks of cattails and reeds. When the wind blew through them, they rattled like hollow bones, and Kaiba couldn't help but think that something about the tall grass was sinister. He looked away hurriedly, trying to staunch the sense of dread that was blossoming in his belly and sending warning tendrils prickling along his spine. He glanced down at the ground below his feet. The honeycombed asphalt promenade that ringed the island was mottled with weeds and debris. It didn't look promising at all.

As he tried to make sense of this new environment, memories from the world they'd just left suddenly flooded the teen's mind, and he tore off his trench coat and rolled up the sleeve of his shirt. The tattoo on his bicep was gone. "Jounouchi, take your shirt off," he ordered.

"No fucking way, ya pervy bastard!" the blond retorted.

"Baka! I've already seen you naked." Jounouchi crossed his arms indignantly. "Look!" Kaiba shoved his arm under Jounouchi's nose.

"Oh. It's gone," Jounouchi said with wonder. Gingerly he lifted the hem of his shirt, and Kaiba tried vainly to not feel aroused as his eyes roved over the smaller teen's six-pack abs and well-defined pecs. There was no trace of the flame that he'd carved over Jounouchi's heart. "Fah some reason, I thought they'd still be with us, since we did it to each other."

"That makes no sense," Kaiba said sourly. He was feeling ... sad ... that the roughly-hewn rook that Jounouchi had chosen to mark him with was gone, just another memory to be forgotten.

"Well, you obviously thought that they might have made the shift with us," Jounouchi pointed out.

Kaiba shrugged. "I was merely testing-"

"Another hypothesis." The blond snorted and rolled his eyes. Jounouchi turned away from Kaiba, leaned on the rail that ringed the island, and contemplated the distant skyline. Kaiba followed Jounouchi's sightline, his sense of apprehension rising the longer he gazed out at the vista. It was daylight, so he didn't expect to see any visible lights, but something about the city looked shabby and untended. "Kaiba? The World Trade Center-it's still standing ..."

Kaiba picked up a ruined newspaper that had been cemented to the ground and bleached by the weather. He carefully peeled the outer layers to reveal faint print inside. The dateline in the yellowed margin read 'August 23, 2002.' "Hn. This doesn't make sense." He tore off a scrap of the paper and handed it to Jounouchi.

"Unless this is some kind of parallel universe," the blond said after noting the date. "I hope that doesn't mean ..." His voice trailed off and he shuddered involuntarily.

"You hope it doesn't mean what?"

"Well, in so many of the places we've been to, we've seen ... other versions of ourselves, and our families ... and friends. It kinda freaks me out, y'know?"

Kaiba let out a deep sigh and nodded his head in agreement. "Yes," he said in a choked voice, "I know." They both stared at the distant skyline for a few minutes longer.

The tall brunet stretched out his limbs and realized that all the pain from the injuries that had befallen him in the previous world was gone. It felt good to be pain-free. "What do you want to do?" he asked tentatively, pushing aside his growing assumption that something was terribly wrong in this version of New York City in which they'd landed.

"I guess first we should see if there's anyone here." Jounouchi threw his arms out wide. "But from the looks of it, no one's been here for a long time." Kaiba nodded grimly before staring at the blond in astonishment. In almost all of the worlds they'd visited to date, their lives had been endangered every time they'd come across other humans, or whatever creature had been at the top of the food chain; the blond's enthusiasm was an anathema to the blue-eyed teen. Perhaps, he thought, it was because the skyline that beckoned to them from across the harbor, despite its obvious desolation, was such familiar tableau. "Hey!" Jounouchi exclaimed with a crooked smile, "I always wanted to climb the Statue of Liberty!"

"We don't-" Kaiba stopped himself from completing his thought. He was going to chastise the blond for such a ludicrous statement; they didn't have time for sightseeing. But, the truth was, time was all they had-that, and each other's company. Besides, for whatever reason, Jounouchi seemed to be happy at the moment, and Kaiba found that to be far more pleasant than when the blond was morose and suicidal. The last thing Kaiba wanted was to spend the next seven days in this God-forsaken place alone. Or worse, alone, and trying to stay free and clear from whomever or whatever did inhabit the city. He realized that, given the choice, he was far happier to have Jounouchi's companionship, than to have to go it alone. He returned the blond's smile and said, "What the hell, I'll race you to the top," and took off running, getting a jumpstart before Jounouchi had time to react.

"Hey, no fair!" the blond whined, but soon he was dogging Kaiba's heels earnestly. They raced around the promenade, carefully avoiding stumbling over the cracked and jagged surface; each teen's field of vision narrowed to encompass the ground in front of him.

The first corpse brought Jounouchi to a standstill. "Fuuuuck!" he cried out in horror, and Kaiba looped back around to see what had upset the blond.

The body was lying facedown, and as far as the brunet could tell, it was an adult. A human adult. But it was too decomposed, and the clothing had long ago turned to rags; there was no way of telling if they were looking at a man or a woman. Jounouchi dry-heaved a couple of times and then began to walk toward the path that led to the base of the statue.

"Maybe that's not such a good idea, Jounouchi," Kaiba called out. His own stomach was feeling unsettled. He was certain that they would find more bodies, and those that they did would probably be in no better shape than this one. Jounouchi glared sullenly at Kaiba as if it were his fault that the body laid there. Guiltily, he acknowledged to himself that, in a way, it was-not that the body was there in itself, but that they'd been dumped in this world to happen upon it.

"Don't you care, Kaiba?" The blond asked indignantly.

"Care about what? That ... person? I didn't know them."

"So? Don't you have any empathy? Or curiosity? There was something like nine million people living in New York City when we left. Every single one of them had a life-they loved, they hated, they worked, went home to their family or their pets, or to an empty apartment. Look at all those buildings." Jounouchi nodded out at the skyline that was now behind them, "Doncha wonder about the people lived there?" He looked down at the body, and added softly, "Don't you wonder who this person left behind, or if were they the last one to die?"

Kaiba shrugged. "No-"

"So you don't care about anyone, do ya, ya cold-hearted prick!"

Kaiba stared at Jounouchi for a moment; didn't the blond remember how he'd risked his life for Akhlut? "That's not true, Jounouchi, and you know it!" It dawned on Kaiba that, in his own clumsy way, Jounouchi was trying to dig at something deeper. He was talking about them, and whether or not Kaiba cared for him.

"Oh yeah, that's right. You LOVE Mokuba, poor kid," Jounouchi added snidely. "More like you obsess over him an' smother-"

At the mention of his beloved brother, Kaiba grabbed the blond roughly. "That's right, I care about my brother and I'd do anything for him," he spat angrily. "The rest of the world, though, can fuck off as far as I'm concerned. No one had any empathy for me-"

"Whaddya mean? We were always trying ta help ya!" Jounouchi wrapped his hands around Kaiba's wrists, trying to pry the brunet's hands off of his jacket.

Kaiba dropped his arms to his side suddenly and looked away. He didn't want to dredge up the past, HIS past, almost as much as he didn't want to talk about what he was feeling toward Jounouchi. "Let's just drop this." He hazarded a glance at the blond, who was in no way ready to just let his remark go unchallenged.

But instead of protesting, the blond folded his arms across his chest and toed at the crumbling asphalt. When it became apparent that Jounouchi wasn't going to speak either, Kaiba barked, "What?"

"Nothin,'" Jounouchi mumbled, further infuriating the brunet.

"It's quite obviously NOT nothing. Spill."

"It's just ..." Kaiba watched with considerable interest as Jounouchi struggled to find the right words. "It's just that you hold everything inside, and act like you don't need anyone-"

"I don't-"

"Will ya lemme finish? But we're stuck here together for who knows how long ... maybe the key to us getting back home is more than just getting along. Maybe we need to depend on each other?"

Kaiba snorted. "You're kidding, right? There's no way the Pharaoh sent us on this eternal junket so that we could-"

"What? Be friends? Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot I wasn't good enough to be your friend." Kaiba could see the raw hurt in the other teen's eyes, and he knew that Jounouchi wasn't talking about just any friendship. He turned away and his lips tingled as he remembered kissing him in the wolves' den; it was all he could do to restrain himself from claiming the blond right then and there. But when that time came, and Kaiba realized that it surely would, he didn't want their union to be borne of anger. He glanced back at Jounouchi and was surprised at the vulnerable look that greeted him. Once upon a time, that exhibition of weakness would have filled him with the desire to mercilessly attack and beat down his opponent, but Kaiba realized that he felt actually felt bad to be the cause of that look. He took a step towards Jounouchi. "Get the fuck away from me!" The blond railed at him.

"Jounouchi, wait. That's not what I meant," he mollified. "The Pharaoh didn't curse you, remember?"

Jounouchi ran his hand through his hair. "Yah, I know that, dumbass-"

"Is it necessary to call me names?"

"You don't seem to have a problem with name-calling-dork, geek squad, mutt," Jounouchi rattled off some of the names Kaiba used to describe the blond and his friends.

"All right, Jounouchi, I get it-"

"The thing is," Jounouchi continued, "Is even after all the time we've spent together, I hardly know anything about you. Anything other than what's public knowledge, and the little bit that you told Set."

At the mention of his ancient self, Kaiba was reminded of the unique effect that the high priest, or rather the Sennen Rod, had had on Jounouchi. "Oh, so you were paying attention then. I thought you were too busy mooning over him ..." He let his words trail off; he was uncomfortable with the emotions that the memory brought to the surface. Instead, he thought about what the blond was asking, and seeing that there was no foreseeable end to their journey, he allowed that it wouldn't be so God-awful to talk about the events in his childhood that had shaped him. Or at least give a brief synopsis.

"Kaiba Gozaburo was a bastard," he confessed finally. He gazed at Jounouchi evenly. "I can't talk about him, but I can tell you this. He taught me two things; no one will help you if you can't or won't help yourself, and never let anyone see your weaknesses, they'll only exploit them." He watched as Jounouchi digested his words, and then turned to the corpse. "Besides, this person was dead long before we arrived here, and if ... it's," he said tentatively, at a loss for naming a gender, "any indication, we'll be seeing quite a few more before we shift. I couldn't help what happened to that person, and to think about who he or she was seems pointless, Jounouchi."

"I just don't get how you can be so callous."

"What's to get? I would think that, by now, after all the hostility you've faced in your life, and especially all that's happened to you since the curse, you'd be a little less concerned with the plight of your fellow man, and a little more concerned with saving your own skin."

"Ya know, more than a little of that hostility has come from you, but-just fuggedaboudit." Jounouchi peered down intensely at the ground beneath his feet, and Kaiba noticed a blush gracing the other's cheeks.

The brunet smirked at Jounouchi's obvious discomfort but allowed him some space to compose himself. He knew that Jounouchi was right, he'd always ridden the blond harder than his friends, and focusing his attention on that fact, Kaiba realized it was because he expected so much more from the blond. He innately sensed that Jounouchi was a slacker who, more often than not, would choose the easy way out. He needed to be prodded, not coddled, and his ragging on the blond had encouraged Jounouchi to use his talents, if only to prove to Kaiba that he was wrong. And in the process, Jounouchi had exhibited an enviable amount of resilience and tenacity.

While he felt smug about his role in drawing out those qualities in the blond, Kaiba knew enough about interpersonal relations to not gloat about it. Or perhaps being stuck in such close quarters with someone other than Mokuba for such an extended period of time had sensitized him. Either way, he knew that the proper response in the situation would be for him to apologize, and so he did.

"What's this I'm hearing?" Jounouchi replied sarcastically. "The mighty Kaiba Seto is sorry? Did the world end or something?" He looked around him and nodded. "Why yes, I believe it did," he added without irony.

No one could push Kaiba's buttons like Jounouchi, but the older teen guessed that the same could be said for him. There had been countless occasions where he'd goaded the blond for no other reason than because it had seemed to be such good sport at the time. He counted to ten and then twenty, thirty, and ended at forty-seven before he spoke. "So, are you still interested in climbing the statue?"

Jounouchi eyed him carefully and then shrugged. "I dunno, what if there's more?"

"Bodies? That's the chance we take. But really, who knows when or if you'll ever have another opportunity to-"

"Fucking Pharaoh!" Jounouchi hissed, taking Kaiba by surprise. "No one deserves this!"

Kaiba rolled his eyes. "So you've said numerous times. It doesn't change the fact that here we are."

Jounouchi eyes met with his, and Kaiba was gratified to see some of the fire had returned to them. "Let's do it," he said defiantly. "What have we got to lose?" He turned and began to walk towards the entrance to the statue, not bothering to see if the brunet was following.

Both teens were mildly surprised that the doors leading to the museum in the statue's base were unlocked, but the interior was pitch dark. "Let me see if there was a flashlight on that body," Kaiba volunteered.

"Eww, you'd touch it? What if it's diseased?"

The brunet shrugged. "It beats trying to feel our way around inside. For all we know the floor could be gone, and we'd both fall to our deaths. Wait for me here, Jounouchi." He strode away before the blond could voice a protest.

The body fell apart as Kaiba gingerly nudged it over, but he was relieved that his hunch had been correct. He spied and was able to free up the flashlight that was still gripped by the remnants of one hand. He felt his stomach turn and broke into a cold sweat from the sheer disgustingness of his task. He tested the flashlight, surprised that it actually functioned, and then made his way quickly back to Jounouchi. As he walked slowly back to the place where he'd left the blond, he tried to banish from his mind the images of the corpse disintegrating, and the smell that the rotting flesh had given off after it had been disturbed.

"You okay?" Jounouchi asked, obviously concerned, when the brunet returned. He merely nodded in reply, still concentrating on not losing whatever contents were in his stomach. "Ya don't look so good."

Kaiba turned on the flashlight, and a comforting beam of light pierced the cavernous darkness. He shut it off quickly though, as the scene that greeted the teens was revolting to say the least. There were many bodies in there, though from what Kaiba could see in the few seconds he'd viewed, none seemed to have died from any particular violence.

"Shit Seto, this place is starting to freak me out," Jounouchi whispered hoarsely. "Maybe we should stick to the outside. I don't care if I ever come back here." Kaiba turned to the blond and nodded. "Did you cut your eye or something?" Jounouchi asked then, his brow furrowing.

"Not that I know of. Why do you ask?"

"'Cause there's blood dripping from it."

"What?" Kaiba wiped at his eyes with his free hand, and his fingers came away smeared with blood. Something was terribly wrong, he thought, and the flashlight clattered noisily to the ground, as Kaiba was overcome with dizziness. He wobbled over to a nearby bench and collapsed on it. Suddenly, he was hit with wave after wave of nausea, and he found himself leaning over the back of the bench, heaving up bile and spit long after there was nothing left in his stomach. His head was pounding and he didn't feel like he had the strength to hold it up, so he rested his forehead on the back of the bench, willing the dizziness away, despite the throbbing pain between his ears. At some point Jounouchi sat down next to him and rubbed his back soothingly. Shortly though, the blond, too, was vomiting in earnest, and Kaiba, who'd recovered somewhat, at least enough to move, returned Jounouchi's gesture. When it was apparent that Jounouchi was done with his bout of vomiting, both teens lay sprawled on the bench, each utterly exhausted.

And then, as quickly as the symptoms had come on, they were gone. The only reminders left behind were the streaks of dried blood on their faces and the taste of bile in their mouths. Kaiba tried to make sense of what had just happened to them both. It seemed apparent that they'd somehow been poisoned, and since neither teen had eaten anything in this world, nor had Jounouchi touched the corpse, whatever it was, was airborne.

After a while Jounouchi croaked, "What the fuck was that?"

Kaiba turned his head and looked at the blond. "Didn't you read Hiroshima?" Jounouchi shook his head, bewildered. "It seems to be radiation sickness," Kaiba pronounced with finality.

"No fucking way!" the blond teen exclaimed. "I feel fine now," Jounouchi added unsurely.

Kaiba nodded weakly. "Way. Think about it, Jounouchi, no living things, an abandoned major metropolitan area-"

"Is it gonna kill us?" Jounouchi asked, his voice tinged with worry.

"I don't know. But, I think it would be best to get off this island, and get over to Manhattan. We need fresh water, food and ... medical supplies. I'd be willing to bet we aren't going to find much of anything here." He lifted himself off of the bench and offered his hand to Jounouchi.

"Except dead things," Jounouchi stated as Kaiba helped him to his feet. "We can't very well swim there. I guess that, if we can't find a boat-"

"Then we'll need to light a fire." After a moment, he realized that he was just assuming that Jounouchi would go along with him; he knew the blond found that irksome, so he added, "Agreed?"

Jounouchi, a little taken aback at being consulted, responded quickly. "Seems like a plan."

After confirming that there was no boat available to shuttle them across the harbor, the teens spent the rest of the day harvesting cattails in order to build a fire. Realizing then that neither teen had any matches nor a lighter, Kaiba volunteered for the grim task of foraging for something inside the museum at the statue's base.

"No," Jounouchi shuddered. "I-I don't want you to go in there!"

"Jounouchi, there's nothing inside that can hurt me."

"You don't know that, Kaiba!"

The brunet turned around. "Do you have a better suggestion? Neither of us knows enough to rub two sticks together-"

"Y'know, that reminds me, Seto, we should get to a library and study some survival techniques," Jounouchi suggested, changing the subject.

"That isn't going to help us right now, and we need to set a fire if we have any hope of getting off this island."

"Alright, but if you're going in there, then I'm going with you."

"That's reckless. What if something does happen to me? We have no idea what will happen if we both die, Jounouchi. I don't want to risk this being the end."

Jounouchi gulped. The place they were in was definitely giving him the creeps, and he did not want to be left alone for a minute, let alone for the next seven days. But Kaiba was right; if they both died here, that might affect the curse in a bad way, and the chance that his life might end-for real-was enough reason to concede that the other teen had the right idea. Besides, he wasn't too ashamed to admit that the glimpse he'd seen of the interior and all the dead bodies was more than enough of an image to be burned into his memory for time immemorial. But he didn't want any harm to befall the brunet, either, and not just for selfish reasons. Kaiba had suffered more than his fair share of serious injuries in the worlds that they had visited, and Jounouchi had to admit to himself that, despite how arrogant and annoying the brunet could be (and he was growing to actually like and to even admire those personality traits; at least when he wasn't bearing the brunt of the brunet teen's wrath), when Kaiba suffered, he suffered too. He wondered if there was some kind of pre-ordained limit to the amount of injuries their bodies could sustain before the shifting would end. He shook his head to rid himself of that thought, because he did not want to think about the ramifications of them never finding their way home. But it was too late, and suddenly he burst out crying.

Almost instantly, he found himself wrapped in Kaiba's strong arms, his head nestled against the taller teen's chest, the brunet murmuring softly into his hair, "It's okay, Jounouchi, let it out." Almost immediately, the physical contact calmed him down. And, as the realization hit him that it was Kaiba who'd been able to soothe him so easily, Jounouchi blushed in mortification. He pushed the brunet off of him roughly.

"I'm sorry! I'm not being weak!" he stammered. "I don't know what came over me; I think I'm allergic to something here." He glanced furtively at Kaiba, and noticed that his eyes were red-rimmed.

"I don't think you're weak, Jounouchi, and you don't have to lie. What's happening to us is bound to take its toll."

"Right." Jounouchi nodded, wiping away the teary residue. "But crying ain't gonna get us anywhere, now is it?" He let a small smile curve his lips. "Kaiba? Thanks. I know this is gonna sound stupid, but sometimes it helps ta know that ..."

The other teen shrugged. "See, Jounouchi? I do care about someone else other than myself," he said. "Now, stay here, and I'll be back in a few minutes." When Jounouchi started to once again protest, Kaiba placed his finger against the other's lips. "I promise," he added, before hurrying away.

He came back about fifteen or twenty minutes later, ashen and shaky, but holding a satchel that he'd filled with several books of matches, a couple of lighters and a street map of Manhattan.

"Here, I brought this for you," he said, holding out another bag for Jounouchi to take. When the blond hazarded a glance inside, he saw that Kaiba had procured some matches, a working flashlight and a city street map for him as well. "In case we get separated," the brunet mumbled. "I tried to get a couple of cell phones, but I couldn't find any. I suppose that there wouldn't be any service here any way." Underneath those items, Jounouchi spied a snow globe containing a miniature die cast of the Statue of Liberty with the New York skyline depicted behind her. He shook it up, and watched the iridescent flakes flutter about the mini-world.

He smiled, "Aw Kaiba, ya shouldn't have. Y'know I didn't have time ta get you anything." His grin widened when he noticed the blush staining the brunet's cheeks.

"I just thought that, since you couldn't climb her-" Kaiba looked away hurriedly.

"Thanks, I really appreciate it," Jounouchi said, suddenly feeling a little sad that he knew he'd not be able to take the gift with him to their next destination.

The sun was setting behind them when they finally managed a smoky fire. Jounouchi found the heat that radiated off of it quite comforting, as a chill had begun to settle in the air as dusk approached.

"What if there isn't anyone alive here?" he asked with trepidation.

"We'll be hungry, but there's plenty of water around us, and plenty of things to burn. I could probably forage something to cobble together so we could distill some to drink." He looked over at the blond, and noted how good he looked in the soft colors of the early evening, how the fire caught in the golden highlights of his hair. Kaiba was filled with a vague yearning; he reached out and cupped the other's cheek, "Plus, I think we could find a few interesting ways to pass the next week," he said meaningfully, his voice husky with desire.

Jounouchi contemplated what Kaiba had said, and his lips tingled with the memory of the kiss that they shared in the past world.

"D'ya think that there was something to what happened ... earlier? That we might be soul mates?"

Kaiba leaned in closer to the blond, until their faces were nearly touching. Despite the remnants of dried blood streaks that were still visible on Jounouchi's face (and he imagined he looked equally as sinister) and the faint smell of vomit, Kaiba was feeling incredibly horny. It had been literally months since he'd gotten laid, and covert masturbation wasn't really cutting it. With the blond so accessible, he was finding it difficult to keep his hands to himself, especially after that incident in the Amazonian world when he'd actually helped Jounouchi jack-off. Kaiba licked his lips, savoring that delicious memory.

"You know I don't believe in all that mystic mumbo-jumbo; but I can think of worse people to whom my soul could be linked with." He brushed his lips against Jounouchi's, and was momentarily surprised at the younger teen's hungry response. He pulled back and said huskily, "But that's not the kind of linking that I'm thinking about right now." He kissed Jounouchi again, and before he knew it, his head was spinning from the sensations that were bombarding his senses as both teens groped each other blindly in a heated make out session.

Jounouchi pulled away panting, and stood suddenly up to stare out across the water. "What's that noise?" he asked, turning to the older teen. For a second, Kaiba had no idea what the blond was talking about, but then the distant whine of an outboard engine soon registered. Kaiba turned in the direction of the sound, and saw a small craft cutting through the water at a significant speed. "Give me your coat," Jounouchi said hurriedly.

"Why? They obviously see the fire."

"It's white. I want them to know that we-"

"Come in peace." As he took off his trench coat and began to wave it in the air above his head, it occurred to Kaiba that they were finishing each other's sentences, as if they were an old married couple. He guessed that was something that happened when one spent a lot of time with another person. He watched intently as the boat's trajectory shifted a bit; whoever was steering had seen the two teens and was zeroing in on them.

"Here goes nothin'," Jounouchi said grimly as he eyed the approaching vessel skating over the water.

"Are you nervous?" Kaiba asked, gauging the growing apprehension in his stomach.

"A little too late for that," Jounouchi said out of the side of his mouth. "At least they look human," he commented as the boat drew up.

Both teens raised their hands in surrender as the boat drew up parallel to the shore, and three heavily armed men pointed the muzzles of their rifles at them. Kaiba started to say something, but thought the better of it. If there was one thing that he was beginning to understand, it was that it was better to let the citizens of the world they were visiting speak first. Jounouchi, it seemed was in agreement with him. Kaiba cast a sidelong glance at him, and was heartened by the other teen's poise. Indeed, Jounouchi, when it came right down to it, was as formidable an ally as an opponent.

While the blond had assumed the position of surrender, he was by no means cowering in fear. What Kaiba realized was that Jounouchi was sizing up the opposition. The brunet could almost imagine the gears chugging away in the other's brain as he weighed the odds of coming out victorious, or at least alive.

Apparently there was some bone of contention on the craft for, while two men kept their guns trained on the teens, the captain, or at least the man who had guided the boat across the harbor, had become involved in a heated exchange with the other of the gunmen. While this was going on, Kaiba coolly observed the greeting party. The two men who had the teens in their sights looked to be adolescents themselves. They were wearing camouflage, so Kaiba inferred that they were some kind of law enforcement. The other man with an automatic weapon appeared to be their commander, and the way he was arguing with the last man on the craft did not bode well; both of those men looked to be in their early to mid-thirties. Kaiba could hear snippets of the conversation, and it seemed that the commander had wanted to just dispatch the two teens.

"... Doc says if anyone is alive, and they aren't mutants, we're to bring them back to the City."

"Look," the other man waved his gun menacingly in Kaiba and Jounouchi's direction, "I'm in charge of security, and my gut instinct tells me that those two are either spies of the enemy, or exiled criminals. Either way, we shouldn't bring them into our midst."

"Your 'gut instinct' earlier was that they were mutants attempting a diversion for an ambush; that they certainly aren't. Doc put me in charge of this reconnaissance, and the orders stand." Kaiba thought that the other man would go apoplectic, but the captain continued," Look, it certainly is beyond strange to find two kids alive here, but there must be a reasonable explanation. Besides, we could use all the help we can get around the colony." He cast an appraising glance over Kaiba and Jounouchi, "And they certainly look able-bodied." The captain turned his full attention back to the teens. "By order of the President of the City of New York, I hereby place you under protective custody. Get down on your knees with your hands behind your backs." Kaiba watched as Jounouchi dropped to his knees silently. Parsing the language with which the man spoke, Kaiba took some comfort in his use of protective custody. He was giving the teens the benefit of the doubt, but Kaiba was almost certain that that would change once he and Jounouchi actually tried to explain their presence. He couldn't really blame anyone for not believing their wild tales, though the repetition of landing somewhere, telling their story and one or both of them being incarcerated and then going on the lam had lost its appeal several worlds ago.

The other man grumbled with disgust. "I can't believe we wasted precious fuel for a coupla kids." He turned to Kaiba directly. "Ya better not have been pulling some kind of a prank. I'll make you wish you were never born."

'Too late for that,' Kaiba thought wryly.

"Do they look like they're playing a prank? They've both got the sickness, so they can't have been here long, and you know what that means," the captain said meaningfully. "They could be candidates for breeding." Kaiba listened carefully to the conversation and watched from his vantage point on the ground as the two young soldiers disembarked and carefully approached them, weapons drawn. Breeding what? he wondered, and glanced over at the blond. The color had drained from Jounouchi's face, but his jaw was set in a grim line. Not for the first time was Kaiba pleasantly surprised by the mettle of his traveling companion.

While he and Jounouchi waited under the watchful eye of one of their young captors, the other patted the boys down for weapons and then rummaged through the satchels before tossing them onto the deck of the boat.

"We surrender," Jounouchi said evenly, breaking his silence and taking both young men by surprise.

"No weapons, nothing much to speak of, Sir!" the young soldier called out.

"We have orders to take you into custody," the other explained. He was of medium height and build, with brown eyes. Shaggy clumps of brown hair peeked out from under his camouflage cap, and patchy stubble covered his jaw. He seemed frightened of them, and that was very dangerous. Scared boys with guns, could this day get any worse? The brunet's mood was quickly turning morose.

Jounouchi nodded his understanding, and allowed his hands to be cuffed behind his back. Kaiba did the same, despite every fiber in his being screaming that he should do something to defend himself. But, against his better judgment, he trusted the blond. Jounouchi's instincts had a better track record than his own, and even though his injuries had healed in the shift to this world, Kaiba felt ghost-pains from the wounds he'd recently suffered.

"It's going to be okay Seto-kun," Jounouchi said to him quietly in Japanese. He would have railed at Jounouchi's impertinence at his use of the familiar, but the brunet was oddly comforted. No one had ever dared to use such an endearment when speaking to him.

"Let's hope so. For the moment it looks that way," Kaiba replied as he was pushed to stand behind Jounouchi.

"Hey, they don't speak English!" the commander exclaimed. He quickly climbed out of the boat and reached for the blond roughly, his anger flaring. "What the hell did you just say?"

"Lieutenant," the captain warned. "These two are not prisoners; they are only detainees until Doc interviews them." He turned to Jounouchi. "You don't need to answer; you have the right to remain silent."

Jounouchi ignored the man who held him, and turned to the boat's captain. "I was just telling my friend that everything was gonna be okay. My name is Katsuya Jounouchi." He nodded his head in the brunet's direction. "His name is Seto Kaiba. We look forward to meeting Doc and telling him that we mean no harm."

"Him?" The lieutenant snorted.

The captain ignored the other man. "I'm Justin Walker, welcome to New York, Mr. Jounouchi, Mr. Kaiba. You'll have an audience with Doc as soon as time permits. Meantime, our orders are to bring you to the city and make you comfortable. I'm sorry about the 'cuffs; you have to understand, it's completely unnatural for anyone to be on that island. No one's been seen alive there for years."

Taking his cue from the captain, the other young soldier volunteered, "It's called the Island of Lost Souls, and Lady Liberty watches over them." He cast a sidelong glance at his charges, eyes wary, but less fearful than before. The boat cast off the island and backtracked across the Hudson.

"That she does," Kaiba replied.

They rode back across the harbor in silence, though anyone would have been hard-pressed to speak over the din of the engine. Kaiba noted that there was a rugged air to their captors, and a threadbare quality to their clothing that spoke of hard lives. Boots were dusty, and the brown-haired soldier's were held together with duct tape that had lost its silvery appearance, certainly not the norm for a bustling city. But nothing seemed normal in this version of New York City.

They were heading toward a dilapidated pier by what Kaiba guessed to be Battery Park. The captain cut the engine and the craft lurched to a halt, and then drifted in towards the jetty.

A few people had gathered there to await the boat; they stood silently and watched the teens as a shore worker labored to tie the craft up.

Jounouchi turned to Kaiba and said under his breath, "I've got a bad feeling about this."

"Now you tell me," the brunet retorted as they were herded onto dry land and paraded past the crowd. It was dusk now, and the city streets were lit dimly, though none of the buildings within sight appeared to have electricity; they were all darkened hulks, their windows jagged slivers of glass, or missing altogether.

The cars that lined the streets were nothing but shells; anything of value had long ago been stripped from them. As the party walked uptown, it seemed that many cars had just been abandoned and then pushed to the sides of the streets or piled on top of one another, creating strange, post-modern sculptures of twisted metal. Above their heads, wires crisscrossed between buildings, and Kaiba could only surmise that they'd been jury-rigged for electricity. All around them were signs of decay; buildings gaped windowless, and weeds grew from cracks in the pavement. In some places, trees had sprouted in the middle of what had once been main avenues. After about twenty minutes, they had reached the old City Hall. Here again the commander argued with Walker. The former wanted the teens to be billeted in the prison there, while Walker insisted that they be brought up to the dorms. After a tense standoff, the commander caved, and Kaiba observed Walker with renewed interest. Apparently he held more power than he was letting on. They continued walking up Broadway, it and the cross-streets were oddly deserted, and the wind howled bleakly through the canyons created by the skyscrapers that rose all around them. Kaiba glanced over to Jounouchi to see how the blond was faring. Jounouchi caught his gaze and marveled, "Incredible, ne?"

"Incredibly sad. New York was a glorious, vibrant city. This is just a rotting shell."

They'd reached the site of the New York University dorms, and they were escorted into one of the non-descript concrete buildings. Once inside, it took a moment for Kaiba and Jounouchi's eyes became accustomed to the flickering overheads. They were ushered into an elevator, and the six men squeezed shoulder to shoulder as the lift wheezed upward into the bowels of the building. After an interminable time in the sweaty confines, the car stopped, and they were let out into another dim hall. Walker led the party to a door, slipped a key from his pocket and opened it. It was a small dorm room. Walker turned to the soldier who'd handcuffed the teens. "You can release them now. They're unarmed, and there's nowhere for them to run to." He turned to address Kaiba and Jounouchi as the boy unlocked their handcuffs and removed them. "One of you can stay here, and the other, next door. You can take showers if you like, but mind you, no more than five minutes. All the faucets are set on timers; we need to conserve as much water as we can. Someone will be by to bring you some dinner and clean clothes. I suggest you rest up; Doc will probably want to see you late tonight, or first thing in the morning."

"Thank you," Jounouchi said, and turning to Kaiba, he asked, "Rock, paper, scissors?"

"Their doors will be guarded nonetheless," the lieutenant declared. "They are not to have contact with each other, understand?" Kaiba was beginning to detest the man. He was all too familiar with his type; given a little power, he'd turned his sphere of influence into a little fiefdom. A dangerous man to be on the wrong side of, but the deck had been stacked against Jounouchi and him from the beginning.

"You take this one, Katsuya," Kaiba said.

Jounouchi complied and walked into the room, and then turned to the brunet. "Sleep tight, Seto."

"Pleasant dreams," the brunet responded as the door was closed behind the blond. Walker locked the door, and one of the young soldiers stood at attention beside it. The older man then opened the door to Kaiba's room, and he entered it, not bothering to turn back. The door was closed behind him and locked with finality.

* * * * *

The room was spartan in its furnishings, just a narrow platform bed with drawers underneath and a small desk with a lamp, very much like the student dorm it had once been. The head of the bed rested against the far wall underneath the lone window. After glancing out at the nondescript view, Jounouchi wasted no time taking off his soiled clothes and climbing into the shower. He lost track of time, and had barely washed the soap out of his eyes when an alarm sounded and the water was cut off. Shivering, he dried himself quickly, wrapped the rough cotton towel around his waist and sat down on the bed to wait. For what, he didn't know, but the fact that they'd not been killed, and that this prison was the best he'd seen in ages, comforted the blond.

He must have dozed off because he was awakened by a rapid knock on the door. Before he could respond, it swung open and a young man delivered a tray of food with a bottle of water, and brown paper bag. He refused to meet Jounouchi's gaze and said nothing to the blond, just left the items on the desk and hurried out.

His stomach growled as the aroma from the tray filled the room; Jounouchi remembered that he hadn't eaten in quite some time. There was a bowl of some kind of stew on the tray, and Jounouchi quickly dispatched it, ignoring the warning voice telling him that it could be laced with anything; drugs, poison or both. But he was beyond caring. It was in a bowl and had come with utensils, and that was already far better than some of the meals that he'd become accustomed to eating.

He thought about Kaiba, and wondered how the other teen was holding up. Probably just fine, but he himself was fast becoming an emotional wreck. He despised feeling weak and unsure of himself, and he hated it even more that the brunet seemed to know just how to make him feel that way, the latest exhibition of this innate talent being his coming on to Jounouchi. It would be so easy to give into his hormones and his own needs, Jounouchi thought. He was frightened and lonely, and fuck, Kaiba was one hot piece of ass, even without all the money in the world. It didn't help at all that the brunet was a terrific kisser. Jounouchi didn't want to dwell on just how Kaiba may have gotten to be so good at it. The loneliness weighed heavily on Jounouchi's shoulders and he craved some kind of contact with the brunet. He knocked tentatively on the wall between their rooms, on the off chance that Kaiba might respond. After a few minutes of futility, Jounouchi threw himself on the bed, cradling his head in one arm. He wished more than anything that he could see his friends and Shizuka again; he swore that he would never take for granted their company, or even Anzu's sappy friendship speeches. Thinking about them made him ache with grief, but within that pain he felt a hard kernel of anger towards the Pharaoh, whom he'd considered a friend.

It had become a continuous, meaningless mantra in his head a while ago; no one deserved this kind of punishment, not even evil Bakura, and Jounouchi was finding it harder and harder to reconcile his friendship with Yugi and Yugi's relationship to his darker half. The Pharaoh had betrayed him in the heat of anger, and in the fallout of the aftermath, Jounouchi was finding that it was an unforgivable thing to do.

He didn't want to think like this; it shook the core of his being. But if Yugi loved him as much as he professed, and the Pharaoh loved Yugi as much as he asserted, then why were he and Kaiba still exiled? There was no reasonable explanation, and Jounouchi mourned that perhaps Bak Fu had truly been crazy, and that he'd never been returned home, and neither would he or Kaiba. Maybe the old Chinese man had just gone away and hoodwinked all those other people into believing some grand ruse. Maybe that whole world had all been a figment of his own imagination. Maybe he was the one that was crazy, caught inside his own head, and some day he would wake up from this nightmare only to find himself in a mental institution.

No, Jounouchi reasoned, Bak Fu had been real. He shuddered at the memory of being trapped in that well with the lecherous old man. It took a few moments for the tapping to register in his consciousness, and when it did, tears streamed down his face-tears of relief that Kaiba had heard him and responded, and tears of frustration that, no matter what they did, there seemed to be no way out of this eternal curse. And the oddest thing about it was that they seemed stuck in some kind of a loop. Nothing about their outward appearance had changed in the months that they'd been traveling, as far as Jounouchi could tell. Their hair didn't grow, their clothes didn't get worn out, and no marks of any kind were left on their bodies; whenever they completed a shift, they were returned to the condition they had been in when Yami had uttered those awful words. What if they came back and everyone that they knew was dead? He stroked the wall absently as a new wave of tears coursed down his cheeks. He thought about how frightened he'd been when Kaiba had gone missing in the last world, and he tapped urgently on the wall again, immeasurably comforted by the return taps. It didn't matter that they weren't saying anything, that there was no rhyme or reason to the beats, it only mattered that he knew that he'd not been abandoned. After a while though, he became bored with the exercise, so he stared up at the ceiling as the light faded from the day, trying vainly to think about anything but the brunet and how good the kiss they'd shared earlier had felt, and how much he wanted to kiss the brunet again.

As night set in, Jounouchi, in his nakedness, shivered from the cold, so he ventured to see what kind of clothes had been left for him. The moon was rising and it cast an eerie glow into his room so he turned on the desk lamp. It shone dimly, but Jounouchi was grateful for the meager illumination. He emptied the contents of the bag onto the bed and slipped on the long-sleeved t-shirt. He found his own under shorts and then donned the jeans; all in all, the clothes were warm, clean and not too ill-fitting. The satchel that Kaiba had given him had been stuffed in the bag, and remembering the snow globe, he rifled through the items until he found it. He lay back on the bed and shook the globe, contemplating the swirling patterns that the iridescent flakes made. It had been thoughtful of Kaiba to find him some kind of a trinket while amidst the abject horror that Jounouchi knew that the museum contained, and he supposed that was because the brunet genuinely had some affection for him. He had, after all, called Jounouchi his friend, and the significance of that was not lost on the blond teen. That realization warmed his heart, but still, he felt uncomfortable and vulnerable with the feelings that he had toward Kaiba, emotions that he was beginning to understand as something akin to love. He didn't see how Kaiba could ever reciprocate something as deep as that.

His thoughts were interrupted when the door suddenly burst open, and the lieutenant strode in. "The President wishes to speak with you," the older man said, not meeting Jounouchi's eye. Apparently the prick had gotten a good talking-to, the blond surmised as he noted the flat tone in the other man's voice.

He stood up. "Where's Kaiba?"

"I'm right here, Jounouchi." The brunet stepped into the doorway. He was dressed similarly, and Jounouchi admitted to himself that Kaiba would look good no matter what he was wearing, but that seeing him in casual clothes was a treat. He definitely appreciated how the other teen's jeans hung low on his hips, and how the shirt that he'd donned was just a little too short; a thin strip of perfect skin peeked out enticingly in the space between the hem and waistband of his borrowed pants. It took Jounouchi great effort to drag his eyes away from that imagery.

They were brought to what had probably at one time been a cafeteria, but had now been cleared except for a large conference table. No one was in the room yet, and the two teens waited nervously for their audience with the President.

"Should we tell him the truth?" Jounouchi asked.

Kaiba nodded. "I don't see how it could hurt us further."

A door opposite the one they'd been ushered in through opened and Justin Walker came into the room, followed by the lieutenant and a few other men.

"The President of the City of New York," Walker announced. "Serenity Wheeler." As the President strode through the doors surrounded by her bodyguards, the fact that he was a she was overshadowed by who she was, or rather, who she appeared to be. Jounouchi couldn't help but notice her uncanny resemblance to his sister. Serenity Wheeler looked exactly as he imagined Shizuka would look like when she was grown up. He felt suddenly weak as a wave of nausea came over him and the room began to spin. and As he reached for Kaiba to steady himself, he was once again wrapped in the brunet's strong arms.

"She may look like your sister, but you know she's not," he whispered knowingly into the blond's ear. Jounouchi closed his eyes and nodded his head against the older teen's shoulder. Soon the room leveled off and he was able to crack his eyes open. The President was staring at him with considerable interest and, as he pulled out of the brunet's grasp, he saw her eyes light up in recognition before the expression on her face quickly turned to one of horror, and she, in turn, collapsed in a heap into a nearby chair.

In the ensuing confusion, Jounouchi turned to Kaiba. "She recognized me!"

"That's impossible," he hissed. "She's probably twice our age anyway," he mused.

"I'm okay," the President said as she slowly rose to her feet. Kaiba could see that her eyes had a haunted look to them, almost as if she'd seen a ghost. "Please, everyone sit down," she continued, her voice becoming stronger and more authoritative. As everyone took a seat around the table, she continued. "Thank you all for coming on such short notice, but the recent discovery by Justin and Lance is extraordinary indeed." She looked at Kaiba, avoiding Jounouchi completely. "I trust that you were not unduly mistreated."

"No we weren't." Kaiba replied.

She nodded her head, and shuffled through some handwritten notes. "Gentlemen, if it's okay with you, before we begin, I'd like some time to have a word with our guests in private."

Her remarks were quite obviously rhetorical, but in the stunned silence that followed the lieutenant asked, "Are you sure that's wise?"

"Lance Johnson, are you questioning my authority?" she asked tartly. "They are unarmed teenagers, and time is of the essence." Jounouchi watched, pleased to see the commander turn red, in embarrassment or rage, he could care less. It was just great to see someone with more authority put the bastard in his place. "So if we are in agreement?"

"Ms. President," Walker interjected. "The lieutenant has a point. I humbly request to remain behind."

After a few seconds thought, the President nodded in assent. "Very well, everyone else, please clear the room for a few minutes." The others rose from their seats and shuffled out, casting curious glances at the teens as the filed out.

As soon as they were alone, her composure crumbled. She looked at Jounouchi, tears streaming from her eyes. "Joey?" She asked, her voice breaking.

Jounouchi shook his head. "I'm sorry, ma'am. My name's Katsuya. Katsuya Jounouchi."

Walker reached over and pulled Serenity into an embrace. "He can't be Joey. Joey's been gone for twenty years-"

"I know that! But you can't deny-"

"No, I can't." He turned to Jounouchi. "You look just like her brother, and ... my best friend. Joey Wheeler. He died when he was about your age."

"Was murdered," Serenity interjected.

"How?" Jounouchi asked.

"Mutants," Walker answered, squeezing Serenity in a tighter embrace. "They came out of a subway station and took him away ... we never found a trace of him."

"Except this ..." Serenity pulled a chain from around her neck, revealing a small locket. She opened it to reveal two tiny pictures, one of her as a young teen, and the other of a boy who looked exactly like Jounouchi.

Jounouchi couldn't help but gasp at the likenesses of the children in the photos to him and Shizuka. He turned to the President. "You looked just like my sister, Shizuka, back then. And now, well, how I imagine she'll look when she grows up."

"How old is your sister?" Serenity asked.

"When I left ... she was fourteen."

Serenity gasped. "You're about four years older than her, aren't you?" Jounouchi nodded. "That was how far apart Joey and I were," Serenity said quietly, covering her face with her hands.

They waited a few minutes while the President pulled herself together, and Jounouchi could only imagine what was going through her mind. He glanced at Kaiba; the brunet's expression was unreadable.

When she'd recomposed, Serenity fired a series of questions at the teens, and gradually Jounouchi and Kaiba worked through how it was that they had arrived in New York. Neither teen expected to be believed, and they weren't disappointed in that regard, though finally the President acknowledged that there could be some truth to their story.

"You don't appear insane," Serenity said in all seriousness, "And I can't for the life of me explain your presence. Plus, you did just get the sickness today ..."

"About that," Kaiba asked. "Is it acute?"

She nodded her head. "Anyone who's ever come here from outside has died within the week, so I've been told. We haven't had any visitors in over ten years. When it comes back, we have cyanide capsules, so that you don't have to suffer needlessly."

"Poison?" Jounouchi asked.

She nodded her head. "Radiation sickness is an awful way to die."

"Good thing we'll be gone within a week, ne?" Jounouchi commented.

"Gone where? You can't leave here," Walker countered.

"He didn't mean it that way," Kaiba explained. "The curse, it shifts us to new worlds every seven days. But why couldn't we just leave?" he asked suspiciously. He didn't like the idea of being held in this hell against his will.

"You'd be shot at the border."

"But why?"

Walker shrugged. "We don't know why, it's just the way it's always been. After the bomb was detonated here, we were left to our own devices."

He went on to give a brief history of New York after a neutron bomb had been dropped over the great city. Having been abandoned by the rest of the nation and cut off from the rest of the world, the surviving citizens of New York slowly came together and reinstituted laws and a provisional government. It had been just about twenty-five years since that fateful day, and the colony had been stabilized, and had managed to muster enough protection from the mutant strains of humanoids that had been trapped in the region with them. The mutants, though considerably dangerous, appeared to be slowly dying out. Their genetic composition had been unstable to begin with; they'd originally spontaneously mutated after the first wave of radiation, and the subsequent generation had been even less viable. Lately, the colonists had been coming across quite a few abandoned dead or near-death babies. Now the greatest threat to the colony's continuing existence was their own limited gene pool. Many of the survivors had become sterile from the high levels of radiation, and most women had refused to even try to become pregnant, for fear of giving birth to mutant children, or offspring that needed so much care that they would tax the meager healthcare system that existed.

"So if what you are saying is true, and you've just come to our world today, you both would have viable sperm," Serenity noted, matter-of-factly. "And we could use them. The fresh genes, as it were."

Jounouchi snorted at the idea of leaving a bunch of progeny to run around in this world. "I don't think we could do that," he said tentatively, wondering aloud how donating sperm that might one day become children might affect his and Kaiba's prospects for getting home.

Kaiba, though, shrugged. "That really isn't our problem, now is it? I'd be happy to ... donate."

"Kaiba, are you nuts? We could change the course of the future-"

The brunet looked at Jounouchi coolly. "The Pharaoh should have well thought of the implications of his god-damned curse before he went running off at the mouth. And besides, we change a world simply by setting foot into it. It's not outside the realm of possibility that religions are being created from the aftermath of our appearance in some of the worlds that we've landed in."

"That's crazy talk!"

"Any more crazy than the belief that Jesus died on a cross and was resurrected after three days?"

Kaiba had a point. "But-"

"And one more thing, Jounouchi. We no longer exist in our world, and as far as we know, we may never again. I'd like to know that I've left something behind somewhere other than memories and lore."

Jounouchi thought about that for a moment, and what Kaiba said ultimately made sense. Just like in that prior world they'd visited-the one where he'd been executed for attacking Kaiba-these people needed their help. He hadn't given it a second thought then, so why should he now? Who was he to deny them a chance to continue living? He certainly wasn't a god (though he thought it hilarious that somewhere someone might be worshipping his memory as such), he was just a lost boy, and if he could help these people, he knew that the right and moral thing to do was to help them survive. And it had nothing to do with the fact that Serenity Wheeler reminded him of Shizuka.

"You're right, Kaiba. Of course we'll help." He turned to the older woman. "But won't the fetuses get sick and die ... just like you said that we'd do?" Jounouchi shuddered at the thought of a painful death, and hoped that it wouldn't come down to that. Even though he knew that his demise would almost certainly be temporary, he still had a healthy aversion to becoming sick and dying.

"No, if your sperm are alive and well, then we can inoculate them. We've come up with a prophylaxis treatment, but it doesn't work once you've developed symptoms."

"But how will you know that they haven't been damaged by the radiation?"

Serenity smiled at Kaiba's astute question. "We can look at their DNA strands. Before the holocaust, New York was one of the centers of biotech research. Enough information survived-"

"Doc is a genius," Justin interrupted. "She's being far too modest. Her father was a brilliant scientist, and she's taken his genetic research and come up with a method of repairing DNA code. Look, if it weren't for her, there would be no colony," he continued proudly.

Serenity blushed at the compliment, and then said modestly, "If I were half the genius you claim I am, then I would have been able to convince the others to try and procreate."

"They'll follow your example, you know that," Walker countered.

Serenity nodded, and then turned to the teens. "So, you see, if you don't mind, then I'd like to make the collection as soon as possible."

"Déjà vu," Jounouchi remarked, blushing.

"I was thinking the same thing," Kaiba deadpanned. "What about the rest of ... your council? Are you going to tell them what we told you?"

Serenity and Justin exchanged glances. "We have to harvest your sperm first, and then we can go to the Cabinet with our findings."

"You don't believe us," Jounouchi stated. "S'okay, I wouldn't either. But I guess once we deliver tha goods, all that'll change."

The President smiled. "If it makes you feel better, I do believe you, Katsuya. The proof will be the proverbial icing on the cake. Now, come with me, and I'll set you up."

* * * * *

It wasn't nearly as embarrassing as he'd remembered it being the first time, Jounouchi mused as he sat in the well-appointed room after he'd taken care of delivering his sample. Kaiba sat in an adjacent chair, pointedly avoiding him. The blond snickered to himself; he didn't need to be a genius to figure out that he'd been the brunet's catalyst. He guessed that was fair enough, since the memory of Kaiba's hands skimming over his body had proven to be more than enough to get him going.

Serenity came in a few minutes later. "Both samples are viable, and I've spoken to my Cabinet. As you can imagine, they have about as many questions to ask you about your world as you probably have about ours."

"They believe you?" Kaiba asked suspiciously.

"They're willing to entertain the possibility-"

"Even that prick?" Jounouchi blurted.

She turned to the blond. "You mean Lance?" Jounouchi nodded. "You have to understand something about him; he lost his entire family when they tried to escape here. But, his heart is in the right place. There isn't anything he wouldn't do to protect this colony. You both look exhausted, but it would be of great service if you would come back and speak with everyone."

"We have a choice?" Kaiba asked.

"Of course you do. You are no longer in custody; you're free to do as you please, as long as you abide by our laws. Apartments are being readied for you for as long as you need them."

"That's it? Ya trust us ta walk among you all of a sudden?" Jounouchi asked, incredulous.

"We're well-equipped to take care of you if you try to hurt anyone. But, my instincts tell me that neither of you mean us any harm-"

"And Serenity is unerring in her instincts," Justin interrupted. He wrapped his arms around his president's waist possessively. "Let's get this over with," he murmured. "We have a baby to make." At that statement, Jounouchi's eyes widened and Serenity blushed.

"What Justin means is that I happen to be ovulating. After the sperm have been inoculated, we are going to try to inseminate me."

In the stunned silence that ensued, Serenity and Justin led the boys back to the conference room and her waiting Cabinet.

Gradually, Jounouchi and Kaiba were painted a fuller picture of the events that had led up to the destruction of New York City. It turned out that the current year, to the best of anyone's recollection, was 2021, which, Jounouchi figured out almost immediately, would place Shizuka and Serenity at the same age. Throughout the early morning hours the boys combed through the history of their world and listened to the history of this world. There were many similarities between them, and their histories were mirrored up until the early nineties. The changes began after the Persian Gulf War, which had quickly escalated into a World War. The terrorist organizations that had spawned from the virtual incineration of Iraq and Iran by US military long-range missiles had been exported to many western capitals. The UN had unilaterally condemned the United States and the world had placed sanctions against the superpower, but the effort had been far too little too late. The Islamic fundamentalists had easily recruited terrorists and had obliterated the Israeli government, the only nation to stand by the US. Once that had occurred, the Palestinian Authority's Hamas-majority government wrested the anarchy that had befallen the Israeli state under their control, and had promptly discovered that Israel had developed, in secret, their own nuclear weapons. Their nuclear program had, in fact, been quite sophisticated, and it was a wonder that they hadn't managed to deploy any of the weapons they'd developed. Within weeks of the discovery, a long-range missile, equipped with a nuclear warhead, exploded over New York harbor. The weapon had been a modification and improvement on the original neutron bomb design, and had done minimal damage to the city's buildings, saving its carnage for all living beings in its path of destruction.

After the initial hit, hospitals and critical care centers had been overwhelmed with the injured and dying. The city had been cut off from the rest of the world, and rumors had run rampant. Having spent the nineties embroiled in a World War, there had not been the explosive growth of Internet technology in this world as there had been in Kaiba and Jounouchi's, so there had been little ways to communicate with outside world. The sporadic emails and phone calls had always ensured that help was on the way, but eventually, as the situation had grown worse in the city-people had been dying en masse from radiation sickness while others had slowly starved-lawlessness had abounded. It hadn't been until the reports had started trickling in; that refugees were being turned back at checkpoints hundreds of miles outside the city limits, and those who did not comply were being shot on sight, that a group of survivors began to forge a provisional government, and recruit a security force.

The men and the President listened intently as Kaiba pieced together the world that he and Jounouchi had inhabited. They were particularly interested in where the histories diverged; and more than one person wondered out loud what had happened to set the courses apart.

Kaiba shrugged noncommittally. "Chaos Theory."

Justin nodded. "I remember reading about that in old textbooks. Something about the beating of a butterfly's wings ..." He knitted his brow.

"Yes, that is one example; how the beating of a butterfly's wings over the Pacific Ocean could affect the weather on the Eastern seaboard of the US. Perhaps it was one dropped diplomatic connection, or a poorly worded phrase that changed the trajectory."

"But it would need to be more than that," Justin added. "There would have to be some kind of wrinkle in the time continuum. It's almost as if every decision or action or event could spawn an infinity of alternative realities."

"You don't need to convince us of that," Kaiba replied.

"I know you say it's a curse that put you here, but there must be some kind of scientific explanation," Walker continued to muse.

"Hey," Jounouchi perked up. "What was it that that guy Sefu said? When we landed in Africa? Something about wormholes."

Kaiba frowned sourly and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He agreed with Justin; there had to be some kind of reasonable explanation for all of this. It couldn't just be some ridiculous curse by an ancient spirit whom he had a hard time believing even existed. But which was worse, being at the mercy of some ego-maniacal apparition of an ancient pharaoh, or having coincidentally fallen through a tear in the time-space continuum at the precise moment when the ridiculous curse was recited? Suddenly, he was far more exhausted than the sleep deprivation of the past day warranted.

Serenity, seeing the stricken expression on the brunet's face, intervened. "You both look beyond tired, and it's almost dawn." The President turned to the rest of her Cabinet. "I trust that everyone's curiosity about our guests has been satisfied somewhat?" There was a general rumble of agreement. "Fine then, we can break into smaller groups tomorrow, and continue this discussion." She turned back to Kaiba and Jounouchi. "One of my bodyguards will show you to your rooms. Thank you both for everything. This has been a most enlightening evening." She rose to leave.

Jounouchi, remembering her earlier remarks and plans, spoke up. "Ms. President, if I could say something?" he implored softy.

"Of course, Katsuya."

"You should use Kaiba's ... sperm, he's the genius."

Hearing Jounouchi's comment, Kaiba hurriedly returned the compliment. "You're no slouch yourself, Jounouchi." He turned to Serenity. "He's excellent at thinking on his feet, and has a natural gift for reading a situation right."

"Meh, I'm more brawn than brains; your kids could probably single-handedly save this world."

"I think you've both proven yourselves intellectually," Serenity said with much diplomacy. "But if you have no qualms," she turned to the brunet, "I'll try to bear a child with your sperm first."

At a loss for words, Kaiba simply nodded, and then changed the subject. "While we are here, and healthy, we'll do whatever work we can to help. I think I could probably assist you in streamlining some of the technology you are using. Perhaps, after all this time, you could try again to contact the outside world."

"That's awfully altruistic of you, Kaiba," the blond needled lightheartedly. He was immensely relieved that they'd come to a place where they were both being treated with civility and respect. He hadn't realized how tense he'd been since ... crap ... since the whole nightmare had started.

"See, Jounouchi," Kaiba smirked. "Just another way to show you that I do care." He didn't know why the angry blond's words spoken earlier had affected him so profoundly, but he found it important to prove to Jounouchi that he wasn't as selfish and self-centered as the younger teen had indicated. 'Yeah, right,' a voice inside the brunet's head mocked. 'You just want to get into his pants.'

They were taken to a nearby building and brought to rooms that overlooked Gramercy Park. In the early morning light, Kaiba could see workers inside the gated square, tending to a rather large garden. He felt restless, and he couldn't stop thinking about Jounouchi, and how responsive he'd been the day before. He had an overwhelming desire to continue where they'd left off. He tested his door and finding it unlocked, walked down the hall to Jounouchi's apartment. After knocking a few times and receiving no response, Kaiba decided to cut his losses and go back to his rooms. He'd just turned to leave, when the door swung open to reveal the blond teen, topless, and hastily clad in his jeans. Kaiba noted that the top three buttons were undone, and that curly pubic hair peaked out from the opening. Seeing Kaiba's gaze directed to his nether regions, Jounouchi adjusted the pants, much to the brunet's dismay.

"S'up?" Jounouchi asked sleepily.

"I was wondering if ... maybe ..." He reached out and caressed Jounouchi's cheek, "if you wanted to ..."

"Uh, yeah. About that." Jounouchi's eyes slid to an interesting smudge on the wall next to the door. "I-I ... What exactly do you want from me?"

"I thought that was crystal clear."

"Yeah," Jounouchi chuckled nervously, "but what does it mean?"

To say that Kaiba wasn't used to a reluctant lover would be an understatement. He was, more often than not, the one fending off advances. He stared at Jounouchi, quite perplexed at the blond's suddenly cool reaction. "Are you asking if I have noble intentions?" he asked sarcastically.

"Somethin' like that," Jounouchi mumbled uncomfortably.

"God, I just wanted ..." Kaiba's voice trailed off. What had he wanted? To fuck Jounouchi, but what were the repercussions? He couldn't exactly sleep with the blond and say 'I'll call you sometime.' No, sleeping with Jounouchi meant having a relationship, and all that entailed. He didn't think Jounouchi would cotton to being fuck buddies, and he found that idea just as unappealing.

"I thought so," Jounouchi said finally, taking Kaiba's silence for his answer. "If it's all the same with you, maybe we could talk about this some other time? I can't deal with the drama right now." He waited expectantly for Kaiba to say something. After a few seconds, the brunet nodded, and Jounouchi closed the door.

The next few days passed in a blur. Jounouchi easily fell into a schedule of helping out in the garden below his windows. He found that working the soil all day and harvesting the ripening vegetables was a pleasant way to pass the time; it was almost like a vacation, especially compared to some of the other worlds they had experienced. Once the day's work was done, he'd share a communal dinner with the other workers, only to fall, dog-tired, into bed upon returning to his apartment at night. Even the distant grunts and moans that drifted into his window from the mutants below failed to unnerve Jounouchi to any great extent. He felt comfortable here, and could almost forget the dormant illness in his body that the others claimed would eventually affect him, or the equally impending shift to a new world, or maybe, home.

The manual labor also served as a way for him to avoid thinking about Seto and the confusion of feelings he felt toward the brunet. He did miss Kaiba though, and he had to be content with the glimpses that he saw of the other teen walking amongst and conferring with the members of Serenity's Cabinet. Jounouchi imagined that Kaiba was right at home there.

Serenity called on him on the evening of the fourth day, and they had an incredible heart-to-heart; he found himself believing that she indeed was the sister that he'd left back in his world. They seemed to relate on so many levels, and it caused an ache to grow inside Jounouchi. He told her how he believed that his friend had betrayed him, how the rage that he felt toward the other was growing day by day, and how the predicament he found himself in shook his loyalty to the core.

"I always backed Yugi, especially when it came ta Moneybags," he said, referring to Kaiba. "Yug' was my best friend. But, no matter how I turn it over in my head, I can't say that it was anything but was wrong for him ta do that to Kaiba. And I feel worse when I think that it was meant for Kaiba alone. That's just unforgivable. But the real kicker is, I might never get back ta give the bastard a piece of my mind."

"But, if I understand you correctly, Yugi didn't do anything. The ancient spirit, Yami, did."

"I know that, but we've been gone for months. It's as if they've all forgotten about us," Jounouchi said bitterly.

"Maybe something unforeseen happened. You mentioned that the Pharaoh had some memory lapses. Maybe he doesn't know how to reverse the curse."

Jounouchi considered that. "Well that would just bite, Shi-chan-I mean Serenity!" He blushed at the misspoken endearment.

"It's okay. I can't tell you how many times that I've started to call you Joey." The older woman smiled tearfully. "It's going to be so hard to lose you again, but I'm so glad that I have this time with you," she said softly. Jounouchi could only nod in agreement. He'd met other iterations of Shizuka in some of the worlds that he'd visited, but Serenity had come the closest to her in spirit. He felt tears prick at his eyes, and the loneliness that he'd managed to keep at bay descended heavily on his shoulders after she'd finally taken her leave of him.

Jounouchi stripped to his underwear and lay on his bed, but sleep would not come to him. He was filled with anxiousness, and couldn't stop thinking about how the last conversation he'd had with Kaiba had gone. He'd really blown it the other day; he'd acted like a blushing schoolgirl, and had probably set the tenuous friendship that they were forging back by several years. Fuck. He didn't want to go through another few weeks of avoidance and cold shoulders. They only had each other, and to be fighting over stupid things was just about the worst situation he could imagine.

He couldn't believe that he'd actually thrown out the word 'relationship.' He covered his eyes with his arm and wallowed in his own self-consciousness for a few minutes before once again trying to sort out exactly what he wanted from Seto Kaiba. He heard the door to Kaiba's apartment open, and then listened to the muffled sounds that the brunet made as he readied himself to turn in for the evening. Jounouchi knew that he owed Kaiba an apology for blowing him off the other night without fully explaining himself, and he realized that Kaiba had probably made himself scarce because of it.

The fact of the matter was simply that he missed the other teen. He longed for the brunet's companionship, and he no longer had the energy to convince himself otherwise. He wanted Kaiba. He yearned for the comfort of being held in the other's arms, and he wanted to experience again the fluttering in his stomach that he'd felt each time the brunet had kissed him. More than anything, he wanted to feel Kaiba's hands again on his cock, and as he remembered that time that the brunet had serviced him, he felt his groin tighten in arousal. He was confused and his emotions were all tied up in knots, but what Jounouchi finally admitted to himself was that most of his apprehension was because he was afraid to become involved romantically with Kaiba; he worried that, once they managed to find their way home, the brunet would reject him.

If he took the next step, Jounouchi realized, he didn't want things to ever go back the way they were. He was tormented by the temptation of inertia; of just letting things be the way they were now indefinitely, and by the excitement that was growing in the pit of his stomach, the hyperawareness that Kaiba was in the room next to him and probably ruminating about him. All he needed to do was screw up the courage to go knock on the brunet's door.

And then what? Listen to Kaiba snark and mock him? There were worse things, Jounouchi thought, and, as much as he was enjoying his days here in this world, there was no one that truly understood or shared in his abject loneliness. Finally, he slipped on his jeans, resolutely determined to talk to the other teen.

* * * * *

Kaiba paced his living room like a caged lion. Intellectually, the past few days had been incredibly rewarding. He'd managed to successfully get one of the aging computers hooked up to the Internet, and the colonists had been gradually learning the fate of the greater world. Apparently, after New York had been hit, the US retaliation had been fast and furious. The world had been bombed back into the Stone Age, or at least some post-apocalyptic rendition of it; small pockets of humanity were spread across vast wastelands. Overall though, the will to survive had prevailed, and the colonists had begun to share their knowledge with other colonies from around the world.

Kaiba had also managed to improve the wind-energy technology for the colony, and more electricity now flowed through the wires.

All his activity had served as a balm against Jounouchi's rejection. He was loathe to admit just how much the stubborn blond got under his skin, and as much as he missed Jounouchi's companionship, he was determined to let the blond know that he didn't need it.

But he knew that, on that account, the only person he was fooling was himself. Each night he'd lain in bed unable to sleep, his mind awash with tantalizing imagery of Jounouchi in various states of undress; his dreams, when sleep finally overtook him, were erotic scenes of the other's face, attractively flushed from the exertion of their lovemaking, urging him to move faster, moaning how good it felt to be fucked by him. He was mooning over the blond like a besotted schoolboy, and it was incredibly annoying to him that the other teen could drive him to such distraction. A timid knock at his door rousted the brunet from his musings.

He opened the door to his apartment to see Jounouchi standing there.

"Can I come in?" the blond asked nervously. "I-I don't want to be alone."

Kaiba rolled his eyes. "What do you want, Jounouchi?"

"I-I want to stay here with you, but that's all!" Unmoving, Kaiba crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm not ready ta have sex," Jounouchi said finally.

"That's not going to work for me, Jounouchi. I'm a man after all, and I have no desire to be led around by some blushing virgin. I don't understand what the big deal is."

"Look, maybe all this is easy fah you, but I just got around to figuring out that I was gay, and where I come from, it isn't exactly celebrated," the blond replied, his voice equally as surly. "I'm just coming to terms with all this, an' I know that I'm attracted to you, and you are ta me, but I just don't know where ta go with it yet." He looked at Kaiba, his brow knitted. "I thought ... maybe ya'd understand that."

Kaiba felt his resolve crumble. He wanted Jounouchi. He wanted to fuck his brains out- to caress and possess every square inch of his skin. It was torture to be in the same room with him, let alone share his bed without laying a hand on him. Thoughts of the blond had begun to consume his nearly every waking moment. But, he also understood that vulnerability when one realizes they are different; when what they desire is considered disgusting, or worse, a sin. "Fucking hell," he said resignedly. "Come in." He stepped aside to let the blond in.

Jounouchi stood in the center of the small room, trying to look at anything except for the half-naked Adonis who paced around behind him. He couldn't begin to put into words how he felt or what he wanted because he was having a hard time understanding it himself, and he didn't want to descend the slippery slope of misunderstandings and hurt feelings. He listened as Kaiba padded into his bedroom and the bed creaked in protest as the brunet got back into it.

"Are you just going to stand there all night, or are you waiting for an invitation?" Kaiba asked icily.

"I didn't mean to make you mad," Jounouchi said sadly. "That's the last thing I wanted. I was trying to decide-"

"I'm not mad. I'm just fucking frustrated."

"I should go."

"Go. Stay. Just be decisive for once," Kaiba said dismissively.

"Whaddya mean by that?" Jounouchi said, his anger rising at being talked to so cavalierly.

"When I kiss you, you kiss me back-you act like you want it, fuck, you even let me jack you off-but then you play these stupid mind games. We aren't in grade school, Jounouchi."

"I do want it! I told you that! I'm just not ready!" Jounouchi said angrily as he stormed into the bedroom. "Is that what this is all about?' he asked, referring to the brunet's comment on what had happened in the Amazonian world. "Fine, I'll give you a fucking hand job." He grabbed at the covers, but Kaiba held them fast.

"Don't do me any favors," the brunet hissed.

"Who said anything about favors? I owe ya one. That's what this is all about-getting even-isn't it?" He pounced on the brunet, pinning him under the covers. "Is this what ya want?" he asked angrily, lifting his body up so that his hand could find Kaiba's dick.

"No!" was the strangulated reply, but Kaiba knew he'd lost this battle of wills. As soon as Jounouchi touched him there, it was over. It didn't matter that the blond was pissed at him and doing this out of anger, what mattered only was that Jounouchi was touching him, and that his body felt alive and needy. He didn't want the other teen to stop.

"Hah, you say 'no,' but your body's saying somethin' else altogether," Jounouchi said huskily. He shifted his position and yanked down the covers to reveal Kaiba's erection tenting his loose pajama bottoms. Tentatively, Jounouchi circled the peak with his palm.

The friction of the material on his cock head elicited a deep groan out of Kaiba, and the vocalization sent chills down Jounouchi's spine. "Like that?" He smiled at the brunet; suddenly all of the anger in his body had been transformed into arousal. Kaiba nodded wordlessly. "Want me ta stop now?" Kaiba shook his head, unable to speak; Jounouchi had very talented hands, and all the brunet could focus on was the incredibly sensual way Jounouchi was playing with his cock. He bucked into the blond's hands, dry-humping him as he felt his orgasm crest.

All too suddenly it was over. The weeks of pent-up frustration took its toll on the brunet, and he came violently, before Jounouchi had even had a chance to push down the pajama bottoms and free the brunet's shaft. The blond looked at Kaiba surprise, and the older teen blushed furiously. "Happy?" he asked bitterly as he pushed Jounouchi off of him and got up to go to the bathroom and clean himself off.

Jounouchi sighed. "I'm sorry. I wanted it ta be better than that." Kaiba turned around, puzzled. He thought that Jounouchi would have been triumphant, but instead the blond seemed ... contrite.

"You've nothing to be sorry for, you were fine. I'm the one who couldn't keep it together, Jounouchi."

"But I was so mad at you, an' I attacked you ... again!"

Kaiba chuckled. "I'd say that I provoked you this time. Don't get all hormonal on me now. Or better yet, DO get all hormonal. Just like that, and often." The brunet smirked. "I like it." He slipped into the bathroom, leaving the door open.

After a few moments, Jounouchi grinned. "So I was okay? It's the first time I ever did anything like that-with someone else, that is."

"You were more than okay," Kaiba called out from the tiny room. "Trust me on that."

When Kaiba returned to the bed, he spooned Jounouchi, luxuriating in how well their bodies fit together. His hand slid over the angular planes of the younger teen's hipbone and found purchase on his erection. "Looks like you're going to owe me again," Kaiba whispered huskily as he set about his task with vigor. It wasn't very long before Jounouchi achieved an explosive climax. Kaiba rolled the blond over onto his stomach and covered his face with tiny kisses.

Jounouchi held onto the brunet tightly; something about this almost-union felt so right, and he was hopeful that they'd reached some kind of a tacit agreement, and that fooling around would be okay for a while until ... he felt more comfortable taking it to the next level. So much in their relationship had changed over the past several months; he never would have imagined that they would be on speaking terms, no less hazard a guess that he would become intimately involved with Kaiba. As he drifted off to sleep in the brunet's arms, Jounouchi felt truly complete for the first time in his life.

When he awoke the next morning, Jounouchi immediately sensed that something was wrong. Kaiba had turned away from him at some point during the night, and when the blond touched him, he was burning up. Jounouchi tried in vain to wake Kaiba up, and when he managed to turn the brunet over onto his back, he became quite alarmed. Kaiba's visible skin was an angry red, and he seemed to be swollen, all over.

"Shitshitshitshit," Jounouchi repeated over and over, trying to rein in the panic. He knew that he had to find Serenity, and he dressed, not caring whether the clothes he'd reached for were his or the other teen's. He tried one last time to rouse Kaiba before kissing his blazing hot forehead. "Hang in there, Seto. I'm gonna get some help."

It had taken far too long for that help to come with him, Jounouchi thought as he paced outside the bedroom. Even though it had only been about fifteen minutes, it had felt like an eternity, and Kaiba's condition had become markedly worse. By the time Jounouchi had gotten back to him, he'd nearly stopped breathing.

Serenity came out of the room and took his hand. "It's the sickness," she said, not bothering to cushion her words with platitudes. "He won't make it more than a day, tops. If we can get him back to consciousness, then he can take the cyanide." She looked away from Jounouchi. "Unless-"

"Unless what?" he asked, numbly hoping that she was offering another, more positive alternative.

"We don't practice mercy-killing, but if you wanted to, I could give you something for him-"

Jounouchi shook his head with disbelief, a cold chill chattering his teeth. "You want me to kill him?"

"He's not going to survive more than a day. His organs are disintegrating."

"Stop it!" Jounouchi cried. "I need to see him, now!"

"He's not awake, Jounouchi. He's been in and out of consciousness."

"I don't care. Let me see him!" Jounouchi was beyond inconsolable. It didn't matter that he knew they'd be together again in the next world; he was too upset to reason that out. He looked in horror at all the people who'd gathered. They were nothing to him, not even Serenity, who looked and acted so much like his sister. The only person in the world who mattered to him anymore was in the other room, dying a painful death.

Serenity nodded her head, and everyone moved out of the apartment. She followed Jounouchi into Kaiba's bedroom, which had been turned into a makeshift hospital room. "We've done everything we can to make him comfortable. He'll be thirsty if he awakens, but he won't be able to swallow." She showed him some sponges that had been placed in a bowl of water, "You can moisten his lips with these."

She explained carefully the progression of the disease, and Jounouchi numbly listened, barely registering all the morbid details. What were details when the only thing they highlighted was the awful way in which Kaiba would suffer?

"Just go-" he said finally, pulling up a chair next to the brunet. Jounouchi could barely look at Kaiba; his body had swollen further and he was barely recognizable. The brunet teen's breathing was incredibly erratic and labored. A pronounced rail accompanied every hard-won intake of breath.

"No, I won't leave your side. You shouldn't be alone."

"I'm not alone! He's still alive, dammit!" Jounouchi cried. In response, Serenity only rubbed his back gently.

The hours passed slowly. Jounouchi kept his eyes glued to the unconscious teen, vainly looking for any signs of improvement, categorically denying the inexorable slide downward in his condition. Someone brought in a meal, but Jounouchi could not bring himself to eat.

He wished that Kaiba would wake up and tell him what to do. He hated that the other teen was suffering, but he couldn't make that kind of a decision on his own. He wanted someone to tell him what to do, and yet he felt so immature and undeserving; he knew that, if the roles were reversed, Kaiba would know exactly what to do. He didn't know how long he'd been crying, but suddenly a pair of blue eyes stared out from under swollen lids.

"Jou?" Kaiba's voice was barely a ragged whisper. Serenity touched his shoulder, focusing his attention to the other teen.

"Hey!" Jounouchi said brightly. "You're awake." Kaiba's eyes closed as he coughed weakly. Sensing he didn't have much time, Jounouchi continued. "It's the sickness. They say you aren't gonna make it, but they don't know you like I do. You'll never give up." He watched impotently as the brunet's eyelids closed. "Please, don't go," Jounouchi said brokenly. "Don't leave me."

"I won't," Kaiba said thickly, before drifting back into unconsciousness.

Jounouchi felt weak, and he hated himself for the weakness. But it wasn't fair; they'd just reached a new level in their relationship, and now he knew that Kaiba, despite his will, was dying. Where would that leave them in the next world? What would transpire there to harm them, to toy with their sanity? Jounouchi allowed the rage he felt building inside him to escape. As Serenity bore silent witness, he railed at Yami, the object of his blossoming hatred, railed at the terrible unfairness of it all, and screamed until his voice was beyond hoarse, finally collapsing against the older woman's shoulder. As she cradled him against her, she held him fast. Still Kaiba's conditioned deteriorated; blood now seeped from his eyes and mouth, a testament to the catastrophic failure of his internal organs. Sometime in the early morning hours, Serenity fell asleep on the couch in the living room. Jounouchi crawled into the bed next to Kaiba and fell into a fitful sleep, only to wake up in the early dawn. Day six, he thought to himself, and then he paced for hours, imploring the other teen to wake up, that they were almost home free. He begged Kaiba to please not die on him, and was filled with remorse thinking about all the times that he'd just done that to the brunet.

Finally, Serenity, who had resumed her vigil with the blond, stopped him in his tracks. "It's okay, Katsuya; Seto will live on, in me. I'm pregnant." He stared at her in disbelief. "And the sex-it's a girl."

"Didja hear that Seto?" Jounouchi turned to the inert form. "You're gonna be a daddy! Bet ya never thought ya'd live to see that day." He could have sworn that Kaiba had nodded his head.

"Katsuya, you can't go on like this. The stress, it's going to make your illness come on faster." For the first time in days, he thought about himself.

"I don't care," he said finally. "You don't understand; he's all that I have."

"But you said-"

"I know, I know-that we're reborn whenever we shift. But what if this is it? It's not like we have some kind of guarantee."

"You have to believe ... Don't give up hope," she said. "I believe you."

It was late in the evening when Kaiba breathed his last; he'd never woken up again. Jounouchi stared at the hideous corpse for a few minutes before gently shaking Serenity awake. "Why don't you go home," he said, defeated. "Ya need ta take care of the baby."

"Shizuka ... I want to name her Shizuka. Shizuka Kaiba Wheeler."

Jounouchi smiled weakly despite his grief. "I think Seto would like that."

"So you be sure to tell him when you see him again. Is this good-bye?" she asked Jounouchi quietly.

He shrugged his shoulders. "I guess so. It's getting near the time-it isn't terribly exact."

Serenity hugged him. "I'm so glad to have met you, Katsuya Jounouchi. I won't ever forget you."

"Just take care of those kids you're planning to have."

"They will know all about their fathers, don't you worry." Her voice broke then, and she kissed his cheek. He closed his eyes, batting back the tears that threatened. He'd cried too much already; he needed to be stronger-if he kept going this way, he'd lose his mind for sure. When he opened them again, he was alone with Kaiba.

He sat down next to the body, not knowing what else to do. It wasn't right to just leave him there alone and to go on living until he got sick or the shift occurred. He whiled away the hours thinking about all the things that he wanted to tell the other teen; how much he admired Kaiba for his strength of character and dignity-how he would never again take the brunet for granted. He thought about how Kaiba had suffered so terribly, and how, even though he could have begged Jounouchi to inject him, he'd chosen to stay with the blond. If that sacrifice didn't speak of love, then Jounouchi knew in his soul that love did not exist, and that it had never existed. He closed his eyes and allowed his tears to fall freely; when he wiped his eyes, his hands came away bloody. He knew that meant that he too was dying from the radiation sickness, but he was also aware that they were so close to the time that they would shift, that he would most likely be spared the agony he'd watched the brunet go through. He was startled when a hand brushed his cheek.

"Why are you crying, Jounouchi?" Kaiba's voice croaked harshly.

"Shit! You nearly scared me half ta death, Seto!" the blond blurted, but seconds later he had the now-healthy brunet crushed in a bear hug. "I'm so glad you're alive," he repeated over and over again, burying his face in Kaiba's shoulder and relishing the just-laundered scent of his trench coat. It was another side effect of the curse; no matter how filthy they got in each new world they visited, once they shifted, their clothes were returned exactly to the condition that they'd been in when they'd originally been cursed. There was something to be said for wearing clean underwear, Jounouchi thought, grinning for a moment. The grin faded quickly as he contemplated looking beyond Kaiba's shoulder. He didn't want to acknowledge that they were somewhere new, somewhere that wasn't the Domino City that they'd left behind. After a few moments though, his curiosity got the best of him and he cracked his eyes to take in their environs.

Sighing in resignation as he looked around, Jounouchi knew that they had once again shifted, and that they weren't yet home.


End file.
